Marketing Strategies in Automotive Industry

Marketing

“marketing is the activity, set of institutions and process for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.”

Determining Marketing Strategies

Marketing is different than sales, it leads at production steps. Before applying the marketing strategies, they are constituted. First people at marketing department do swot analysis for company. They determine the opportunities and constraints. Differentiated advantages are positioned and identified. Secondly, they apply 4P (see Figure 1).

In the world of marketing, 4P, developed by Philip Kotler, who is the father of marketing.

Product: It is the main element of marketing mix. Product’s qualifications and benefits for customer are defined.

Price: Price should be appropriate for value of the product. They consider “How much the customer can pay to the product?” Also marketing research is useful for this step.

Place: Finding shortest and cheapest way of transmitting the product to customers.

Promotion: The company works to promote itself to the marketplace.

Customer Relations Strategies in Marketing

Buying a car is one of the big purchase that persons make in their lifetime. To spend a lot of money on a vehicle, consumer must trust to the company. The car should meet the customers’ expectations. Therefore, one of the important marketing strategies is customer relations. In order to make the consumer a customer, automotive companies are trying to respond the needs and provide services that create new needs. Providing realistic information and commitments to customers, following the developing technology and to determine how technology is affecting customer demands are some strategies applied in automotive sector.

Social Media Marketing in Automotive Industry

The main thing in marketing is think about what consumers are passionate about. Many consumers are quite passionate about investment in a car. A lot of people raising their hands and want to talk about it. Thus, there are established brands like Ford Mercedes and GM which are involved in social media. Their consumers purchase their cars and talking about it. And, when companies are not trying to sell something in every conversation and trying to add value to the conversation, show behind the scenes, give them tips and tricks; that’s make them successful.

For instance, in these days, some social medias like Instagram and YouTube works very well for brands that are visual brands and cars. People like to see pictures of cars and what is inside a car, what is in an engine. Internet is very effective way to share images and appeal it to consumers who love images.

Marketing at Toyota

The Toyota Way consists of 5 features in sales and marketing: purpose, principles, human, process and application.

Purpose: Toyota always take care to organize sales activities around the world by setting up sales networks to meet market needs. On this count, Toyota’s sales have risen over the years. They try to find the best way to implement the “Toyota Way in Sales and Marketing”

Principles: Toyota aims to be the most respected and successful car company in the world market by offering its customers the best purchase and ownership experience. In other words, Toyota’s mission is to research and understand the potential customer needs.

Human: The key to the Toyota Way activity in sales and marketing is the human. Toyota’s ideal; including customers, retailers, authorized dealers and suppliers; is to achieve prosperity and development of all stakeholders.

Process: They have 5 processes to see things from the point of view of the customer. Research, visiting, purchasing, acceptance and ownership.